My new rig from Cyberpower PC arrived. Yeah I know this is system builders so I guess buying a pre-built system doesn't belong here... Hate on me if you wish, I am too happy to care. My last few builds have all had "Murphy's Law" issues that just depressed the hell out of me, so I just want a warranty and a place to say "here.. fix this.."

Cyberpower did a very nice job with the cabling and zip ties, but they must have done something wrong with the case's SATA drive slot on top of the case as when I put in a drive it crashed with a blue screen. I just hooked up my HyperX SATA to the mobo's eSATA port and that worked fine.

I OCed CPU to 4.5 Ghz, but keeping other values to auto for now (and let it throttle). I don't have a program for monitoring CPU temps (I did download the Asus suite, but have not installed it yet). Max voltage I have seen in CPU-Z so far was 1.34v so I figured it was fine. Stable in all applications, have not run Prime95. If anyone has some safe links to those (or similar) programs I would appreciate it.

The GPU I have not OCd yet, but I am very impressed with the temps I have seen in Catalyst, only 32c while surfing, and after 30 minutes of playing Skyrim on Ultra (2560x1600) it was only at 61c, with the fan speed at 30%. Very nice! I do appreciate that it is winter now and my room temp was around 65F.

I will post some pictures once I get the pics out of my camera.

Upgrades in the semi-near future:~64GB SSD for Intel cachingDedicated sound card? (maybe, don't really care about sound as I have bad ears and am happy if dialog is loud enough to hear and if I shoot something I hear a "bang" sound).

Anyways, I do plan on sending Cyberpower PC a nice review and telling them I saw them on Tech Report.

Not to burst your bubble but thats interesting that they'd put a 1000W PSU in your system when 600W (fairly conservative) is plenty. This means your PSU is not going to achieve its optimal efficiency.

Also, depending on whether your 2tb hdd is a 5400rpm drive, I would grab a 120-128GB ssd (~$160 on sale) and install the OS on it, just skip the caching altogether. Heck, I'd recommend that even if the 2tb is a 7200rpm drive. SSD caching is going to fall between hdd and ssd performance-wise. For the price of your system (~$1700?) it would be a shame not to have the OS on an SSD.

I also agree with steelcity. The pride incurred in the "I built that" concept is a huge motivator to build yourself, even if it does involve some headaches. Overcoming obstacles (as long as its nothing serious and costly) only adds to the feeling of accomplishment. My first computer was purchased from ibuypower.com and I was very pleased with them as well. I occasionally price check custom build systems on their website and the price difference is oftentimes negligable. But if I purchase from them, I can't say "I built that"

All else aside, it looks like you have a very potent system. Congrats.

I put in a 1KW power supply in case I decide to Crossfire with a second 7970, which would put it right at the 50% sweet spot. The gold certification means it is still pretty efficient outside the 50% sweet spot.